Saturday, March 19, 2011

Fairbanks, Linder and the Three Musketeers

[post 111]

Max Linder produced, wrote, and directed three feature films for his own company: Seven Years Bad Luck (released Feb. 1921), Be My Wife (Dec. 1921), and The Three Must-Get-Theres (Aug. 1922). I've already written about Seven Years Bad Luck, and I guess I really do have some readers because I learned shortly thereafter that there was a short wait to rent it on Netflix. The pen is indeed mightier than the sword.

Speaking of the sword, in 1921 Douglas Fairbanks released one of his popular swashbucklers, The Three Musketeers, based on the classic French novel by Alexandre Dumas père. A year later, Max Linder released the above-mentioned The Three Must-Get-Theres — get it?— his 55-minute parody of the Fairbanks two-hour epic. The French title, L'Étroit Mousquetaire, is also a pun, but with the less satisfactory literal meaning of "the narrow musketeer," though apparently étroit can also mean petty.

[AN ASIDE: Dumas père is not to be confused with his son, Alexandre Dumas fils, the playwright who wrote Camille, the basis for Verdi's opera La Traviata. You can download the original Dumas père novel for free from Project Gutenberg by clicking here.]

Douglas Fairbanks was Hollywood's first big action hero and co-founder in 1919 of United Artists with D.W. Griffith, Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. Though no clown, he was a comic action hero, more Johnny Depp than Mel Gibson, with an eye for physical comedy. If you haven't seen his work, check out his acrobatic prowess in the video of him on my parkour post.

[AN ASIDE: Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. is not to be confused with his son, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., also a movie star, though in the 1930s and 1940s, and not so much the action hero.]

Here's the entry on the Linder film from Europa Film Treasures, penned by no less an authority than David Robinson, author of the definitive Chaplin biography and other notable works:Linder is said to have considered The Three Must-Get-Theres the best film of his career. It came out almost exactly one year after the release of The Three Musketeers, but the success and furore of Douglas Fairbanks’s opulent spectacle were still fresh enough in the audience’s memory to justify Linder’s parody.

With his wig always a little awry, Max parodies Fairbanks’s elegance, athleticism, and beaming self-satisfaction. The story and characters are directly caricatured from the original: Richelieu becomes Rich-Lou, and Buckingham, Bunkumin, while Max becomes Dart-in-Again, and Athos, Porthos, and Aramis are whimsically renamed Walrus, Porpoise, and Octopus.

The best-remembered moment of Max’s emulation of Fairbanks’s balletic athleticism is his deft and lethal stratagem when surrounded by a ring of swords. Much of the humour depends on surreal anachronism, so that Max is inclined to change his faithful donkey for a motorcycle, or cross the channel on a sailing horse. Fairbanks clearly appreciated the parody, and is said to have sent Linder a gracious congratulatory telegram.

The first time I watched The Three Must-Get-Theres, Ididn't find it as funny as I had hoped to. Then I watched Fairbanks' movie, followed by a second viewing of the Linder parody, and enjoyed it much more. Likewise, audiences viewing Linder's comedy would likely have been very familiar with the Fairbanks blockbuster.

So here are a few clips, showing you Fairbanks scenes followed by the Linder version.

Here's Fairbanks as D'Artagnan, tearfully leaving his small village and his dear papa to seek fame and fortune in Paris:

Romantic, sentimental, and noble, n'est-ce pas? And now here's Linder's extended exit, with the father-son affection being mirrored by the cow-horse farewell.

Next up is a Fairbanks sword fight:

And here are two slightly less gallant sword scenes from Linder:

So you get the idea.

Since this is a physical comedy blogopedia, I have to include one of my favorite Linder moves from this film, a nifty pass-through maneuver:

Finally, to switch gears, a quick comparison of a Linder 3-high elopement and a parallel scene in Keaton's Neighbors.

Just for the record, Neighbors was released December 22, 1920; The Three Must-Get-Theres in August, 1922. For more on physical comedy involving 3-highs and other assorted human pyramids, check out this On the Shoulders of Giantsblog post. One of my personal favorites.

After all this, I'm hoping you'll want to see The Three Must-Get-Theres movie for yourself, and now you can thanks to the good folks at Europa Film Treasures. Just click here — and enjoy the whole movie, with original music composed by Maud Nelissen in 2009, performed by The Sprockets.

Finally, for a review in Spanish from the excellent Circo Méliès blog, click here.

Translate this page!

Subscribe To

Follow by Email

QR Code

An Introduction...

[So this is what I wrote six years ago; more or less true!]

Ring around a rosie, a pocket full of posiesAshes, Ashes, we all fall down

Welcome to the All Fall Down blog, an exploration of all aspects of physical comedy, from the historical to the latest work in the field, from the one-man show to the digital composite, from the conceptual to the nuts & bolts how-to. Be prepared for a broad definition of physical comedy (mine!) and a wide variety of approaches. Physical comedy is a visual art form, so there’ll be tons of pictures and videos, but also some substantial writing and research, including scripts and probably even some books.

This blog is a result of me wanting to follow through on lots of unfinished research from the past 25 years. It’s made possible by a full-year sabbatical leave from Bloomfield College that will take me through August 2010. It’s also made more practical by the ease of Web 2.0 tools for managing and distributing content. I had envisioned a web site similar to this blog more than a decade ago, but never got too far with it because it was simply a lot more work. Now, no more excuses!

Just as this blog will be sharing lots of goodies with you free of charge, I hope you will share your knowledge and ideas with me. Feel free to comment on any of it, or to write me directly with your suggestions. Admittedly I don’t see this as a free-for-all forum on the subject of physical comedy. It’s my blog, I’m the filter, and it won’t be all things to all people. That being said, I hope it will bring together insights, information, and people, and encourage others to make their own singular contributions to the field.

I hope to be adding substantial and varied material to the blog on a regular basis, so check back often and be sure to check out previous posts. And finally, a thanks to all of you, past present, and future whose work contributes to our knowledge — and our fun. We are truly standing on the shoulders of giants.

— John TowsenNew York CItyMay, 2009

My Physical Comedy Qualifications

So if you don’t blink, you can see me doing a pratfall on the original 1957 CBS production of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s Cinderella(starring Julie Andrews, directed by Ralph Nelson, stage managed by Joseph Papp).

My Favorite PostsOkay, there are literally thousands of physical comedy blogs out there, but only one physical comedy blogopedia. Why list my favorite posts? Because I want to draw attention to my best research and writing, to posts that make the strongest connections between old and new, between theory and practice, between ha-ha funny and broader global issues. If I die tomorrow, which is impossible because it's already the day after tomorrow in Australia, these are the ones I would like read aloud at my funeral, with high-rez projection of all videos. (Is it bad luck to write that?) Also, please mention that I never voted for a Republican. —jt

Here are some useful and fun blogs and web sites that touch on the whole field of physical comedy, rather than just sites by performers about themselves (not that there's anything wrong with that). Click away!

For the latest posts from these blogs, see below. (Blogs only; not web sites.) These are automatically sequenced by Google in order of most current posts. The blog at the top of the list is the blog with the most recent post. Since the whole idea is to keep you (and me) up to date on current posts in the field, blogs that have not been posting regularly have been dropped from the list; if you've been dropped but are now posting regularly, just let me know.

Here's a list of complete books available for free as pdf documents right here on this here blogopedia, arranged in chronological order; dates are publication in the original language. Clickhere for a Tech Note on these books. Click on the book title to go to that post. More books coming!